I have heard in a few corners on the net that Yamaha used the CS1x engine inside the DJX series of consumer keyboards.

Evidently, Yamaha wanted to keep it quite that they did this.. so as not to devalue/embarrass the CS1x.

I'm fairly convinced this is true, to a degree... that lurking inside the DJX is a core CS1x engine.The sounds are almost identical between a DJ/CS.

I think the DJ might not have as an elaborate FX section as the CS used... it's the only part I hear between the two that makes the DJ sound a bit more.. "cheap". Otherwise, the raw sounds themselves seem identical.Granted, the CS has more voices to choose from, but the sounds that are compared between the two do sound very similar, if not identical.

They have similar XG parameters and CC#'s. The FX section is very similar..

There's been mention that a article in Future Music magazine discussed this DJ/CS connection and how to go inside to alter "hidden" CS1x parameters... now I'm not sure if they just mean the XG parameters or something deeper.. like parameters you would find on the CS.Anyone else heard of this article???

Well it's been a long time since I used either but I'm pretty sure that the DJX uses the Yamah XG soundset which only is kind of the same. Compared to the CS1x, all the PCMs in the DJX have lower sampling rates and earlier loop onsets, i.e. they use less memory. Also the DA quality sounds a lot better on the CS1X. The CS1X is basically a high quality PCM source with a hardware XG editor on the front. It's a great synth system.

IME Future Music articles are often highly inaccurate. Music Tech magazine is even worse. I had a quick look at the Sound On Sound review and it says that the MIDI implementation is "virtually useless" and doesn't mention XG at all. So it looks like the article, if it exists, was assuming it's an XG keyboard. It is not.

Yamaha is good at hiding and keeping hidden parameters away from their synth users.

What they may have also done was use the same AWM2 voice element pairings, as well as the same GM and XG tones. I have no way to confirm that or not for you, but they've used the AWM2 Tone Generator in many of their synths. What I think they do is change the "element" pairings around on them to make them sound different from each other, which the user doesn't have access to do on them. What can be done sometimes is to combine voices, but access to combining different element pairings in those voices is off limits. It wouldn't surprise me if they kept many or all of the same pairings from the CS1X in the DJX. However, as far as the engines goes, I'd think you'd need control over a lot more than that which I assume they limited more of on the DJX. So, perhaps they have some or many of the same basic sounds, but would be less tweakable by the user on the DJX. I remember there being many of the same drum kits on the DJX as what is on a lot of their synths with AWM2s, but I don't remember much about the synth voices on it. Even if they did rip out the CS1X's engine I'm not sure why Yamaha would want to hide that fact. I thought the DJX came out a while after the CS1X's production stopped which means they probably wouldn't have to compete for buyers. If I'm wrong about that, I still don't see how it would matter that much, the money would have gone to Yamaha either way, plus it wasn't long that the CS2x came out. The CS1X wasn't terrible sounding, just nothing to brag about or aspire to in my opinion. If the DJX came with the CS2x or another AWM2 based sound set with their engine and features being hidden then maybe, maybe there might be reason to get excited about finding a way to gain access to them.

Maybe Yamaha just don't want people thinking or knowing that their synth has artificial restrictions placed on it.

The other thing I'm thinking, is maybe somebody at one time hooked up a CS1X to a DJX and found that some of the knobs on the CS1X controlled hidden parms in the DJX. Probably mostly general midi stuff that could be done with most any midi controller. I remember hooking my CS1X up to a QY70 and it totally helped me tweak out some better sounds on the QY. The CS1X was a pretty nice midi controller back in its day. I'm not sure, but perhaps it also spit out some sysex code too while at it. How likely the sysex code would be similar between CS1X and DJX even if they shared the same engine I don't know, I do know the Motifs and RS7000 share some sysex codes.

OK I think it's the XG parameters is what mainly the CS1x similarity was.. similar sounds too, but also same XG parameters like Pan, Portamento, Reverb, Chorus, Variation Effect...

Checking the MIDI Charts for the DJXiib, it shows there is a XG Parameter Change

F0H 43H 1nH 4CH hh mm l l dd ... F7Hhh mm ll Address dd Data

Heck, I'd be happy if I could just get to the LFO rate parameter.. the DJX manual doesnt show control over it, just mod depth.I'm thinking there might be a chance to use XG Edit or sysex code to gain access to more XG parameters.The DJX shows RPN usage.. it shows increment/decriment where NRPN values should be.. I'm hoping NRPN usage will reveal some easter eggs.. worth a shot!

And if it gives more access to the FX controls, all the better. The chorus and reverb isnt ever accessed from a DJX control knob or menu control, only via a CC induced by an outside source.. either a PC/Seq. or other MIDI controller.The only FX the DJX controls is that 3rd FX, the "Varient" one.And If I understand correctly, you can command the three different FX's across all 16 parts/channels. Each part can adjust how much depth each of the 3 FX gets bled in.

Evidently you can also get software from Yamaha for free that will program up to 5 user patterns to the DJXiib. Including arp's. And thru MIDI you could change the interface for the scratch pad.. in fact every single control on the units can be done via a MIDI command.

Even if the DJX's are... Mid Fi units. They sure seem to give a lot of great features for small coin.

not yet.. I will later this week amongst other CC's and try to use XG Edit on it too.

Any freeware XG Edit software out there?

If I can find all the documented and any "hidden" MIDI control of a DJXiib, I will probably begin a GUI MIDI controller so a WinXP+ OS can tweak the DJ unit with custom GUI knobs and controls.I've built GUI midi controller/editors before, so perhaps I can create something useful to get more out of these little guys.

XG combined a Windows-only sequencer with hardware editing features, your tweaks embedded into the sequence data. It debuted in 1995 and the last supported version of the software was for WinXP.

XG Lite software came free with various Yamaha products (like the AN200) or you could buy a full version. There are still active XG users out there, a few years ago I got some asistance from a few when I was trying to track down the AN200 editor (which runs only as an XG plugin what were they thinking?).

In addition to many Yamaha instruments, Korg offered a few XG based synths.

Because it was a commercial product, it's only donwloadable today as warez.

Best source for a legit copy would be AN200 and DX200 owners who still have the factory software CDs.

I listened to Hatfield and the North at Rainbow. They were very wonderful and they made my heart a prisoner.

meatballfulton wrote:It matters little what is inside the DJX since there's no way to edit it.

The only "programming" on a DJX is setting up splits and layers and setting up the effects.

This is incorrect. You can't modify the waveforms outside of selecting one from the preset list, but you can control pitch, lfo (sorta), A/D/R, filter cutoff/res/env amount, etc. And it is all very easy to do via the knobs. The assign knob is the most important bit in all of this. You can save your edits/patches too, etc. And that's just the synth section.. there is much more to edit and program on the DJX than just splits/layers and effects (of which there are quite a few). You should read the DJX thread from a few weeks ago..

I'm quite familiar with the DJX, I seriously investigated it's capabilities and spent considerable time playing one which I decided not to buy.

The "offset" style of editing has been common in many Yamaha instruments over the years...most of the QY series, the CS1x and CS2x, PLG boards, right up to today's MM and MX keyboards. It was central to the whole XG concept and has outlasted XG itself.

There are serious limitations. If the offset is +/- 64 and the preset has the parameter set to 127, the range of control becomes 63 to 127. You only get the full range of control when the parameter is at 64

It's better than nothing of course

I listened to Hatfield and the North at Rainbow. They were very wonderful and they made my heart a prisoner.

There's about 120 voices to play keys with and a ton of drum samples.They are not simply selected with a standard program change (I'm still figuring this mess out..)Yamaha basically picked and chose which XG sounds it wanted and discarded the rest to save memory.They used the XG format to keep the voices program/bank numbers the same as XG.So there's some huge holes/gaps in the program numbers if you are cycling from 1-128 for example.

Yes, you can edit the Reverb and Chorus.. but here's the rub, if the pattern player is running, the sequence it keeps looping will reset the Reverb and Chorus settings everytime the loop begins, and sometimes changes as the pattern plays.There's Chorus/Reverb parameter changes in the loops/sequences and there are CC msgs inside those sequences that either hard set a FX value or it is being "throttled" back and forth in value while the loop plays.

I tried XGworks I found a copy of.. some stuff works.. most of it doesnt. I CANNOT EDIT THE LFO!!! that bites big time!Manual said CC#84 turns on and adjusts portamento.. well it never did anything for me!

I also noticed while playing via a keyboard that it could drop notes out once in awhile. This happens more when the patterns are playing vs. having patterns all off.

I think I got what I paid for.. I was hoping it could do more, but it's very limited as said above.About the only way to get full use out of it is to create a custom GUI that uses a mix of standard midi msgs and sysex msgs.. I might give it a go, but that takes up a ton of time.

For a simple extra sound module.. it's not too bad. Not great, but not bad either.. I just wish it wasnt so bulky so I could tuck it away better.

Bottom line, there isnt really anything special hidden in this. The manual tells you what's available and that's it, nothing more (where's portamento, damnit!!)